The living room was dimly lit, and the fluorescent of the smartphone shone on Li Jianmin's face. On the screen, a middle-aged woman with a good face smiled with him.
Seeing this scene late at night, Liu Jun knew that the old man had a video of the object he knew on the dating APP again. During the day, the old man has to pick up his two granddaughters to school and take three meals for a family of five, which is now his private time.
"Can we add a WeChat?" It's too expensive to talk like this. "The reversal came very suddenly. The "quiet years" in front of you suddenly thundered: and what kind of "object" video costs money?
"Only boot video can heat up quickly, and video prices are high. You can't give the other person any contact information. Are you going to talk to him? On the other hand, a group of people who call themselves promoters recruit and "train" chatmen and try to "make money" on various dating apps such as Benai, Chat, and Xintian. The job poster sent by the promoter declared that you can easily earn hundreds of dollars a day by chatting.
In recent years, various types of dating apps have continued to emerge, which are known as dating in the same city, real people dating, relying on high-traffic platforms such as short videos to push advertisements and pay chat to feed a group of people who try to "cut leeks". Jin Yongai, associate professor of the Population and Development Research Center of Chinese Min University, believes that the ability of middle-aged and elderly people to distinguish the authenticity of Internet information is weak as a whole, and it is easier to become a victim of gray production behind them.
Loans to make friends
On the dating platform, 66-year-old Li Jianmin seems to be particularly sought-after. Some people say that he has a good personality, and some people say that they like him to be so old. But what the old man does not know is that these sweet words have long been secretly marked with prices.
"Video is 5 yuan 1 minute, voice 3 yuan is 1 minute, text messages are 0.2 yuan per piece." Li Jianmin recalled that he saw a dating advertisement on a short video platform and downloaded the software in a vacuum. After registration, there were constantly people who took the initiative to say hello, the words were ambiguous, he replied to a few, and the page showed that it was necessary to purchase virtual currency.
From replying to a large number of greeting messages to daily voice and video after becoming a close friend, Li Jianmin's relationship with "objects" has heated up little by little in the consumption of virtual currency. At the same time, the recharge starts from 19 yuan, and the single amount is not large, but it has accumulated nearly 20,000 yuan in just a few months.
Intimacy stops at the real world. Tens of thousands of yuan were spent, Li Jianmin has never successfully "run", and it is difficult to even get contact information outside the platform. Once, the "object" said that for every 300 yuan gift received, 3 mobile phone numbers were reported, and when the last few were left, they became one by one. Li Jianmin felt that something was wrong and gave up halfway.
He calculated that adding a WeChat would cost about six or seven hundred yuan. Usually after adding a few days, the other party will change his enthusiasm on the platform, thinking that he is not good and that is not good, and then lose contact. Several times and three times, Li Jianmin doubted, but still had luck, expecting that the next person would be the one who really got along with him.
"As soon as I came up, I called my husband and dear, but I didn't add WeChat to my life and death, is this normal?" The son-in-law Liu Jun felt that this was a scam, and he did not know how to persuade the old man, and he was even more afraid that he would borrow usurious loans for this purpose.
Wang Hua's father, Wang Qiang, embarked on this path. He remembered that his father was also a dating app downloaded through a short video platform, and the name was probably "nearby" and "secret chat", all of which were paid chats.
The "object" on the dating APP urges borrowing, video. Courtesy of respondents
In the chat records, the users who have the most intimate contacts with Wang Qiang always ask him when to pay his salary and urge him to send videos. Later, Wang Qiang said that he really had no money to recharge, and let him find a way to borrow it for convenience. Therefore, in December 2021, after putting in a salary of more than 30,000 yuan, Wang Qiang borrowed more than 10,000 yuan of online loans, and is still repaying in installments.
Chat to make money
In the list, those accounts that say that they are 40 or 50 years old and have obvious avatars and beautiful faces always send "miss you" and "can you see you", but almost no one takes the initiative to initiate a video to Li Jianmin.
Li Jianmin said that since the beginning of 2021, he has downloaded six or seven dating software, and is currently using an APP called "Miyuan", registering for more than a month, recharged nearly a thousand yuan.
In Miyuan, the reporter registered a 61-year-old male account without real name and real authentication. After logging in, the account immediately received a large number of greeting messages, with ambiguous content.
The style of painting is different for female accounts. After the reporter registered and logged in, the "Daily Mission" that popped up on the page showed that female users could get corresponding points through videos, receiving gifts, and inviting male users to recharge their heads.
In the background, users can set "the number of gold coins you need to spend on others to send messages, voices, and video calls", text messages 2 gold coins/article, voice 30 gold coins/minute, video 50 gold coins/minute.
Platform customer service said that male and female users can set up independently, and the income can be viewed in the details of points. The reporter set the status to Charge and received a text message and received 200 points. According to the rules of the platform, regardless of the preferential activities, 1 yuan can be recharged with 10 gold coins, starting from 19 yuan; 20,000 points can be exchanged for 7 yuan. Weekly points to reach a certain level, you can also get additional rewards. According to this calculation, it costs about 0.2 yuan for the payer to send a text message, and the fee can get 0.07 yuan.
In response to the claim that obtaining contact information or meeting requires reaching a level of intimacy, giving a large number of gifts, and thus defrauding money, the "Platform Statement" said that no consumption conditions have been set to restrict the sending of contact information other than the platform, and users can report violations to customer service if they find violations.
The reporter's actual test found that many dating software uses a similar chat reward mechanism. A software developer's offer for the finished product of this type of system is 39800 yuan, "the basics of dating are played like this, paid videos, gifts and income." ”
Training induction
Paid dating is a way to feed a group called "chatmen".
In Baidu's "Chater Bar", the reporter randomly contacted several users who recruited chatmen, who called themselves promoters. The recruitment poster they sent described the chatman as "over 18 years old, can chat, use free time to chat every day, and easily earn 100-300 yuan a day."
Recruitment poster sent by the promoter. WeChat screenshot
"Be careful, don't set it free." In the Novice Chater Exchange Group, promoters remind you to set the chat to a charge.
Through the invitation code sent by the promoter, the reporter downloaded and registered 3 dating software of BenAi, Chat Ya and Xintian. The specific rules vary from platform to platform, but the logic of making money is generally similar: earning money by text chatting with users, voice, video, receiving gifts, etc.
"There are many platforms, and there is always one for you. Powerful chatmen earn thirty or forty thousand yuan a day, and not strong one hundred and eighty yuan. Some promoters do not regularly post "performance" in the circle of friends, he declared that there are novices who earn nearly a thousand yuan on the first day.
A promoter who claimed to have been in the industry for more than a year reminded reporters that chats should not involve pornography and fraud. But the "profile" he sent read, "Slightly vulgar, weak pornography, and occasionally feasible to wipe the edges." Not only that, these "materials" also include how to greet, reply, guide videos, ask for gifts, cope with each other's WeChat, and even break up the aftermath and other full-step talk skills.
Chatr "Training Materials". Screenshot of the document
For example, dress as coolly as possible when you are in the video; if you don't make the man think you want to see him, such as saying to him, "I'll go and play with you"; when chatting, you have to act, and use onions and eye drops to force yourself to cry...
"Try not to talk to people in the same city, why don't you recognize you?" The promoter also suggested that you can register a male account first and see how other girls respond.
Guilds operate
"A platform has launched an information flow in the early morning of March 29, and the current annual user growth has reached 10 times (and will be increased after subsequent optimization)." At noon on March 29, a notice came from the WeChat group, and soon someone proposed to join. The promoter in the group explained that the information flow is the promotion traffic placed on platforms such as short videos, that is, advertising.
These notifications are "benefits" that can only be shared by a guild. According to the promoter, the guild can be understood as a team, a company, a multi-level agent, and the superior enjoys the performance commission of the subordinate. Screenshots of their performance show that the largest team has more than 8,000 people.
Promoters post "performance". WeChat screenshot
Under the guidance of the promoters, the reporter registered a guild called "New Global International". New Global International stipulates that women can work as both chatmen and promoters, and men can only be responsible for promotion. If the superior wants to recruit promoters, just select "I want to promote" in the agent center to generate a poster with an exclusive QR code and let it scan the code to register.
For female users who apply for chatmen, the superior also guides them to download the corresponding dating software through the two-dimensional code and invitation code generated in the background, and Ben Ai and Chat Are among them. After the chatman registers for authentication, the superior will send the ID and mobile phone number on the dating software to the customer service, and the customer service reply has been bound, which means that the employment is successful.
The total performance of the promoters corresponds to different levels, and the level increases, and the commission ratio increases accordingly. In "New Global International", the specific level division and commission ratio are different between the dating platforms. According to New Global International customer service, promoters can receive up to 32% of the team performance commission.
A number of promoters have advised that the male user greeting message pushed by the system in batches must be replied to.
"This can be said to be a benefit of the guild, and it will not give you a refund after not replying." Our guild signed a contract with the official, as long as it is registered with our guild, the platform will give special care, high point, good traffic. A promoter who claimed to be affiliated with New Global International advertised this when instructing journalists to recruit chatmen, and he also said that "New Global International" and "Global International" are one company.
Xintian, Chat, and BenAi all have relevant anti-fraud tips. On April 11, the reporter asked the customer service of the three platforms whether they supported the settlement of the guild.
"The girls of the super promoter team will have resources, and the ordinary girls who play by themselves will not have any resources." Xintian customer service replied that the platform has a cooperative guild but only opens a targeted invitation, and the application team needs to add WeChat to enter, note "super promoter". After the reporter added the corresponding WeChat, the other party said that the "super promoter" himself can enjoy 45% of the team's benefits, the subordinate agent revenue distribution platform does not interfere, and the team users enjoy resources such as system distribution and push male users to greet them.
Benai customer service said that it did not cooperate with the guild, and then a person who claimed to be a Benai business consultant called the reporter's phone bound to the platform, saying that Benai did not have a guild, but there were "super recommenders", and asked about the size of the reporter's team, weekly flow and other information. "The general model of Global International is to take quantity, and it doesn't care much about quality." The other side evaluates.
Chat Ya customer service said that do not cooperate with the guild, do not recruit chatmen, but want to recommend to get a certain amount of traffic can leave contact information, there is a special person to contact. As of April 15, the reporter had not received a further response.
Middle-aged and elderly people into the circle
"The Empty Old Man has no defense against these things at all." Wang Hua said that his father usually ran freight outside and only returned home once a week or two. Nearly sixty years old, the smartphone was his main pastime.
According to the 49th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network released by the China Internet Network Information Center, as of December 2021, 26.8% of the 1.032 billion internet users in the mainland are 50 years old and over.
Jin Yongai, associate professor of the Population and Development Research Center of Chinese Min University, believes that the Internet is easy to breed bad information such as rumors and false advertisements and accelerates its dissemination, while the overall ability of middle-aged and elderly people to distinguish the authenticity of Internet information is weak, which makes them more likely to become victims.
At the end of 2020, the Yinzhou court in Ningbo concluded an online fraud case. The company involved in the case screened through social APP, specifically targeting middle-aged and elderly single men of about 50 years old, arranging for salesmen to package themselves as middle-aged widowed women, and then inducing these men to recharge and tip in the live broadcast room on the grounds that their "daughters" do live broadcasts to complete assessment tasks.
Xing Xin, a senior partner and lawyer at Hunan Jinzhou Law Firm, analyzed that if the guild recruits female chatmen, uses routines to attract users to recharge, and shares the proceeds, the act has been suspected of using telecommunications network technology to defraud public and private property for the purpose of illegal possession, and the amount exceeds 3,000 yuan, and the relevant personnel of the guild should be investigated for criminal liability for fraud, and female chatmen constitute accomplices in fraud.
"The chatman fabricates facts, such as lying about how many gifts to meet, so that the other party believes that the money was really paid, and if the person does not return it before the public security organ files a case and arrests someone, it may be determined as fraud." Wang Rusheng, a lawyer at Guangdong Guangqiang Law Firm, said, "If the dating platform actively participates in or knows about this process, it will be judged to bear the corresponding legal consequences according to the actual situation." ”
"On the one hand, the platform should strengthen the real-name system and set up eye-catching risk tips; on the other hand, the government, the community, and family members should work together to help middle-aged and elderly people improve their digital literacy and improve their awareness of preventing being deceived." Jin Yong'ai thinks.
Li Jianmin said that he recently met a lady who was in love, and there was restraint in paying for videos on the platform, and the two agreed to meet after the epidemic passed.
(Li Jianmin, Liu Jun, Wang Hua, and Wang Qiang are pseudonyms)
Source: People's Daily News